


Dawn

by secondhandsunlight



Series: You know I tried to fight my way out [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Graphic Description, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt, can be read as pre-/relationship or friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:27:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8515162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhandsunlight/pseuds/secondhandsunlight
Summary: Depression is a deep, dark hole of despair and every once in a while that root you were holding onto in your attempts of climbing up breaks, and all you can do is claw at the walls as you fall, and fall, and fall.
A continuation of/parallel story to my previous work "In the Dark".





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of (and/or parallel to) "In the Dark". It's probably best to read that one first, I think?
> 
> This story does get quite damn dark, and graphic, so please continue with caution. I would also like to point out that this story is centered around a person suffering from depression, and that not all their thoughts and feelings reflect reality (or my views for that matter). 
> 
> As always, this is only a creation of my mind and shouldn't be read as anything else.

The road to recovery is hard; especially if you don’t choose it yourself. When Dan comes back from the hospital the first time, he thinks that maybe he should be happy. People have noticed he’s suffering, they know he’s hurting. Maybe they can help. Maybe they can make him hurt less.

And maybe that’s what he should be wanting, but every time the thought graces his mind he sees the pain on his parents faces; the terror in Phil’s eyes. He thinks of Phil, hiding all the sharp objects in their flat before his return. He thinks, if he’d done it properly, they wouldn’t have to deal with it all. With him. He thinks, he’s so much more of a burden now than he was before.

The anti-depressants the doctors have put him on makes him gain weight, but that’s not really a problem; he hadn’t realised how much he’d lost before they put him on a scale at the hospital. But they also give more energy to the thoughts that race around his head, and that’s not helping. The anxiety gnaws on him until his bones feel raw and exposed. Some nights he can’t fall asleep at all, and eventually Phil will tire of his pacing and knock on his door. Dan will refuse to talk about what’s on his mind and Phil will put on a movie in the living room, and then they’ll watch that until Dan caves in and curls up again his best friend, the always so frustrating tears stinging his eyes.

Some mornings, he wakes up with his head still on Phil’s lap.

~~~

If you asked him why he did it the second time, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. It’s not so much like the first time, when he felt like he was doing everyone a favour. When he didn’t want to be around because he was terrible and horrible and destroying everyone’s lives. He still thinks he is, but that’s not why he does it. He’s just so tired. Tired of himself and of trying and mostly of all the anxiety that is both making him exhausted and keeping him up at night. It’s not like he’ll ever be happy anyways. He doesn’t remember what laughing feels like, and just he doesn’t have the energy to continue. It won’t be enough, anyways. It’s just a waste of time. He’s just a waste of time.

So, he tells his best friend he’s going to bed, and digs out the swiss knife he’d gotten years and years ago. It’s practically unused; the blade reflects the light as he twirls it between his fingertips. Just get it over with, he thinks.

_You won’t have to hurt anymore_ , he thinks.

He wraps his hand around the knife and presses the blade into his arm. It pierces his skin with ease, and he forces the knife down his wrist as far as he can before he almost blacks out.

_Weak_ , he thinks.

The blood comes pouring out and it’s almost fascinating. But when he takes the knife in his right hand, it’s not as easy. His fingers won’t hold on to the hilt, won’t stop shaking. Everything’s starting to hurt, and he can feel his heart slamming in his chest, and he forces himself to make the second cut. It’s not deep enough, nowhere near, and it doesn’t make the pain stop. It doesn’t make the hurt go away. He doesn’t want it to hurt. And suddenly, he’s scared, and he doesn’t quite know what of and his head is spinning already but he’s so terrified and he _doesn’t know what to do_.

_Phil_ , he thinks.

He gets up, holding his right wrist in his left hand. He stares at it as he unlocks his door, walks into the hallway, following the sound of the voice that is safe and safe and safe. He calls his name, but doesn’t know what to do with the answer.

“Phil?” he begs again, _please look at me please help me please_. He can’t seem to find strength enough to hold his arms up anymore.

His friend turns his head, but Dan’s not looking at him, just at the blood dripping to the carpet. It hurts so bad. His teeth have started shattering, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s cold or because he’s scared but he’s just so not okay and he doesn’t want to be a person anymore but this is not what he wants either.

Phil, he fixes things. He wraps Dan’s wrists up so hard it hurts even more, calls 999. He makes Dan sit down and put his arms up high, and cards his fingers through his hair. Dan’s heart is still racing, and everything still hurts, but Phil makes sure he lives until help gets there.

( _Dan doesn’t understand until months later just how panicked his best friend had been._ )

“I’m sorry,” Dan says, eyes locked with Phil’s in the ambulance because it’s all too overwhelming and he can’t quite breathe, and he doesn’t know exactly why he’s apologising he just knows that he should. “I’m sorry, Phil, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Dan. You don’t have to be sorry,” Phil says, his face upside down over Dan’s, and his voice is so soft and so gentle and Dan’s heart aches.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispers, because right now he doesn’t, not actually. He wants to feel his fingers. He wants to stop hurting. Phil seems to do a double take, but Dan’s not sure because he’s starting to feel like he might actually pass out now.

“I don’t want you to die either, Dan. You’re the best person I know.”

“You must not know many people then,” Dan mumbles even though he knows everyone Phil knows.

“I know enough,” Phil says and leans his forehead against Dan’s.

Dan closes his eyes, and cries.

~~~

Somehow, things change. Maybe it’s the pills that start working, or it’s the meetings with the therapist that Phil follows him to several times every week now, or just that he’s started acknowledging that maybe, maybe he is ill and that maybe he can get better. It is probably a combination of them all, or something completely different, and some days are still so very bad, but occasionally. Occasionally there’ll be the times where he stops in the middle of doing something simple, like making a cup of tea, just to think, _a few weeks ago this would’ve been impossible_. He feels shocked then, usually. And a little bit proud of himself, somewhere deep within. Phil sticks a gold star sticker on his arm, and Dan leaves it there until it falls off by itself. ~~~~

~~~

Another couple of weeks into his recovery, setbacks and all, Dan leaves the house for something other than hospital visits. On a whim, he decides to follow Phil to the grocery store; it’s close, and it’s outside of rush hours, so he thinks that maybe it won’t kill him. He’s not sure what exactly is scary about going out amongst people, but just the thought of being in a crowded space, or, God forbid, meeting someone from his audience, terrifies him.

No-one recognises them.

It’s such a relief to finally get home, to close the door behind them, and as the stress leaves his body he can do nothing but barely make it to his bed. He curls up, relishing in the silence. He feels like he’s just climbed up a mountain, and it’s horrible, and he never wants to do it again, and-

“I did it,” he whispers as it hits him. “I made it.”

~~~

It takes him a few days to gather enough energy to function, and yet a few more before he dares to try again.

But he does it. Again, and again, and he starts feeling more like a human being. The first time they meet a fan, he almost panics, almost can’t breathe, until Phil takes hold of the situation and asks Dan to take the picture they were asking for. And even though Dan feels bad for letting them down ( _ ~~he’s always only letting people down~~_ ), he can’t help but feel so relieved over not having to be in the picture. He manages to smile at them, and he thinks it might seem real. Perhaps, they believe that he just wants to not be on the internet for a while. Probably, they don’t, but either way they don’t say anything and he’s forever grateful for that.

Bit by bit, step by tiny step, he gets better. There are still bad days; maybe most of them are, but there are good days too. Great days even, when he feels almost like he thinks he used to, before. There are still days when he feels like he’s dying, or like he should be dying, but they’re becoming less frequent. When Dan sits down by the piano one day just to feel the keys under his fingers, and plays a small, simple tune, Phil cries.

~~~

He misses them. His audience, that is. It would always be strange to think that so many people would want to waste their time watching him do whatever, but he appreciates them. He misses the small random messages he’d get whenever he’d tweeted anything stupid; misses spending hours talking to them during live shows; misses the meet-ups.

He misses feeling like those were things he could do. Now, even though he’s gotten better at the occasional meet in town, he just feels like he’ll panic. How could he make a video, when every comment would just be them asking about-

About why he’d left them.

The first tweets he allows out in the world, after months and months of silence, are a simple “hi” and a “how are you guys doing?”. Because really, it wouldn’t make sense for him to just pick up tweeting like he used to. Things are different. _He_ is different. He’s not sure he can ever be the same as he was before, and he’s not going to just lie to them. So he starts out slow, simple. Answers a few messages that don’t have anything to do with him. Someone’s switching schools, someone else just got a dog. They make him smile. Maybe, he can make them smile too.

One day when Phil dares to ask if he wants to hand him stuff for another one of his weird almost-series of trying food ( _bless his precious soul_ ), Dan agrees. Nothing more than his hand appears on screen; it’s still terrifying.

His friends had kept telling him no-one was mad at him for leaving, but he hadn’t been able to believe them. Not until now, when he can’t see anything angry as he scrolls through the comments on the video. They seem- they seem _happy_ that he’s there.

“Phil?”

“Yeah?” His friend sticks his head through the open door. Dan can still see the hints of urgency in Phil’s features whenever Dan calls for him, but he can’t think about that right now.

“If- if I filmed a video explaining to them about- about everything… Would you edit it for me?” he asks, suddenly feeling unsure if it’s too much. However, Phil doesn’t hesitate for a second.

~~~

_Hi guys. Long time no see, eh? Yeah, sorry about that… I guess you weren’t expecting me to ever upload again? I guess I wasn’t either, but here we are. A lot has happened since we last had a chat. I wasn’t going to tell you, at first, but I feel like it’d be hard for any of us to move on unless I told you the truth. And I do want to move on. I’d like to start making videos again. I can’t promise when, or even if, they’ll come, but it’s a goal I’m working towards right now._

_Now, uh, the last you saw of me was a video that has since been taken off my channel. After I filmed that video, I, uh…_

[pause; he’s searching for the right words. there are none]

_I tried to kill myself._

[jump cut; his voice is unsteady now]

_I didn’t think there was anything left in me that was worth saving. At that time, I genuinely believed every word I said, and I thought I was doing you a favour when I posted that video._

[he’s twisting his hands together, not looking at the camera]

_I tried again a couple of weeks later, instead of mentioning to my doctor that the anti-depressants I’d gotten had started giving me side-effects – which, by the way, please talk to your doctor? It’s not worth not telling them. But I guess that was the turning point, too, for me. I- I got scared, and then I got it into my head that_ maybe _my mind wasn’t telling me the truth. And that seed of a doubt was enough to get the ball rolling._

_It’s such a damn roller-coaster, this whole “getting better”-deal. Depression is a deep, dark hole of despair and every once in a while that root you were holding onto in your attempts of climbing up, it breaks, and you- you just-_

[he waves his hands slowly, as if he doesn’t know how to continue. his lower lip is trembling suddenly]

_Some days you just can’t get out of bed, and- that’s_ okay _. I, uh, yeah. Now you know. Phil promised to edit this because I don’t think I can watch it back; I think I’ll go now. Just remember to count all your small victories; even if it’s just taking a shower._

[he looks up again, a soft smile on his face even though his eyes are filling with tears]

_The truth is, we’re all worth saving._

_Especially when we don’t believe so ourselves._


End file.
